Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Electroman]

Surprisingly positive article from Bloomberg:

Wise Up, Stock Analysts. Tesla Is the Real Deal.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

..and it is not from Dana Hull. what a surprise.. NOT.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Surprised to see such low volume the day before earnings. Expected to see quite a large amount of interest in both buying and selling.

Perhaps they're waiting to see how today goes and tomorrow will bring the chaos. Volatility from now til April Fools should be wild!

 

[Fact Checking]

The coronavirus epidemic may peak in 7-10 days according to a Chinese SARS expert:

China Xinhua News on Twitter

"The novel #coronavirus outbreak may reach its peak in one week or around 10 days, says Zhong Nanshan, a renowned Chinese respiratory expert."​

My take: this would be contingent on the Wuhan infection flaring out on its own and not spreading elsewhere. If any of the secondary nodes of infection get out of control then the ~60 days clock probably re-starts.

Images like this are giving me hope that the Chinese are handling this properly:

RayTesla️ on Twitter​

Empty roads and idle public transport systems are more effective than any explicit quarantine: I think the idea to use a "prolonged" lunar new year vacation was a genial move to bring key areas of the country to a standstill and rob the virus of its usual paths of propagation.

 

[copyhacker]

Nothing is free. They sell information on your trades so that others can front-run you.

Look at it this way, you’re basically writing them a free call or put option.

 

[1101011]

Accents are terrific. Extra funny, having lived in Boston...

 

[RobStark]

Cadillac adds automated lane changes to Super Cruise, teases 2021 Escalade's rear - Roadshow

 

[Artful Dodger]

Can we make a Forum-wide agreement not to post anymore of Ihor’s short float predictions? They have been wrong for as long as I remember and only can cause harm to investors using his data to predict SP moves.

If someone created a poll every 2 weeks guessing the short float, I bet our wild-ass guess results would as good or better than his. I’m serious about this. With this run-up, I was sure the short float would be lower and it was. He predicted it would be higher.

So let’s do the smart thing and just ignore him altogether.

You're missing the significance of Ihor's work: what he is doing is applying NASDAQ average short interest metrics to the single highest shorted stock in existance, ever, with no error bars.

The value Ihor provides is to show exactly how wildly different TSLA is treated by the Market than all the everyday, NON-EXCEPTIONAL, Non-Performing, Non-Establishment threatening equities.

Then we get a 'reality peek' every 2 wks or so from NASDAQ themselves as to how disparate that treatment is. The funny part is Ihor can't figure out why he's been so wrong for so long...

Cheers!

 

[Zaxxon]

Electrek - hour ago: https://ww.electrek.co/2020/01/28/tesla-model-y-prototypes-boulder-colorado/

Excerpt:

Rumors are that Tesla is about to start Model Y production, but the automaker is still in the middle of its test program as two Model Y prototypes were spotted all the way in Boulder, Colorado.

The rumormongering on these articles just continues to crack me up. So a couple of Ys were seen out here in Colorado. So, what? I'll drop some knowledge that should be common but apparently isn't: there are Model Ys all over the place at this stage, and the majority of them simply aren't spotted/reported to media. The fact that someone sees a couple in Colorado and immediately whips out the 'jump to conclusions' mat to assume that they're specifically here for 'the middle of the testing program' is nuts to me.

A few other equally likely possibilities, generated solely by my brain in the last 60 seconds:
-They're on a tour of Tesla locations to train techs and/or salesfolk.
-They're doing a bunch of high-mileage road trips for the hell of it at the very end of their test program (see what I did there?).
-They're doing the Tesla free advertising thing and generating buzz just prior to the start of deliveries.

 

[powertoold]

As I recall, "test" Model 3s were still driving around well after deliveries started.

 

[Boomer19]

Sounds like sign up process for DeGiro is not the same for every country then, although I created my account there ~2 years ago, so maybe it has changed.

you’re right about IB.
interactive brokers has been barrons #1 best online broker for something like 6 out of 7 years. i think fidelity got it once or twice in there. there’s a reason for it.

 

[lklundin]

I'm more inclined to think it's the MM's trying to keep it down already for Friday.

For Friday I see 2500 call contracts at 400$, those will very likely bring their owners a handsome profit.

If MM's do try to manipulate the SP, then the close to 10k call contracts at 600$ seem like an juicy prize
- which bothers me, because I hold one of those...
But perhaps this will not be possible - there is also 8+ k call contracts at 1000$ - and 4+ k call contracts at 900$.

I guess we can expect ... volatility. Maybe.

 

[Boomer19]

More BS from Ihor. Sounds like a short-squeeze is developing and he's trying to soften the blow for his clients.

Read your brokerage agreements, people. AFAIK, they will typically give your broker the right to lend your shares as long as they are in an account that qualifies as a margin account. And doesn't everyone have a margin account (even if not using margin)?

Is it time to recall our shares?

you can recall (opt out) if you are in fully paid lending. if you are on margin, no dice

but it’s basic regulatory rule that broker cannot lend fully paid shares, which are segregated. unless those opt in to fully paid lending program

 

[RobStark]

hahaha. Now this is an ad. These fools should have been hired by Tesla to do this. Would have been way cooler. I know I know, no ads from Tesla, yada yada yada, but come on....it's catchy.

John Krasinski was one of the first people to buy a Model X.

Evidently he could not master one pedal driving which drove his wife Emily Blunt nutty.

She pushed him to get rid of the X for a Mercedes instead.

 

[willow_hiller]

@KarenRei State prices for TSLA options expiring 2020-01-31:

This particular system I solved with a generalized inverse, which can cause some weirdness. My other script that does traditional inversions will probably take another hour to finish. But here again you can see our options chain short and long theses emerging. Short peak is at 273.5 and long peak is at 650.

Not advice, just maths.

 

[Curt Renz]

Barron's - 45 minutes ago: BorgWarner Is Buying Delphi. Why the Market Is Unhappy.

Excerpt:

The state of global car sale isn't the only problem investors see. They may be questioning Borg's decision to buy a maker of traditional powertrain products. Delphi makes a lot parts for gas power vehicles.

 

[Dutchie]

Cadillac adds automated lane changes to Super Cruise, teases 2021 Escalade's rear - Roadshow

Too bad you don't get it when you just bought your Cadilac or Escalade (unlike Tesla)

 

[RobStark]

Tesla is a trendsetter in more ways than one.

BMW to switch to quarterly sales reporting

Porsche's North American arm will follow the Detroit Big 3 in moving to quarterly US sales reports, a trend that's undoing a decades-long industry practice

 

[lklundin]

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Let's do a comparison for another 50-point spread of about the same cost basis as the 21 Feb $750-$800 spreads ($5,20-$3,50). For 31 Jan, that would be $695-$745 spreads ($3,15-$1,33). Now, we don't have to do 50-point spreads - we could do narrower spreads with more contracts for the same total net reward, but we'll just keep it as an example.

A couple observations:

• For full yield, the stock needs to jump up $187 for Jan and $242 for February. But January has only two trading days post-ER while February has 23 days post-ER. During this time, if it was a good ER, you have analyst upgrades; you'll have given big buyers time to accumulate (or even, first, to decide to accumulate); potential for a Moody's upgrade or S&P rumblings... even some macro stuff going on right now like coronavirus will have time to pass. Two days isn't much; a good ER rarely just causes the stock to jump up big and then flatline.
• If the ER is good but doesn't cause a big enough initial jump, the Jan spreads will quickly become worthless, while the Feb spreads will retain some residual value. The devil is in the details, of course, and both types of spread still definitely fall under the "lotto" category

But really, the short of it is, I just like the look of the 21 Febs more than the 31 Jans. One could also ask why not even longer in the future, but I'm really not looking to price in even more events beyond that in terms of "lotto tickets". I just wanted enough time for the aftermath of the ER to get fully priced in. And again, these are just some minor lotto tickets; my main options are 15 Jan '21 spreads with relatively unambitious strikes ($620-$800 on the bottom end, $900-1000 on the top), so a year's time on them to achieve some relatively modest growth.

Well, you make up for this delay with an elaborate response. Thank you.

What I find notable among the several responses, is the shared expectation that the market will require more than two trading days to properly price in the ER. With no other events expected, that is basically equivalent to expecting profitable trades on the ER to be possible next week...

I guess part of the reason could be that TSLA is currently trading around its ATH - so a very positive ER will require the market to set the SP at a level it has never been at before, a term that seems to be called price discovery.

Irrespective of how it actually goes, I am going to discover how the price evolves from right here.

Thanks also for the other responses.

 

[Tslynk67]

For Friday I see 2500 call contracts at 400$, those will very likely bring their owners a handsome profit.

If MM's do try to manipulate the SP, then the close to 10k call contracts at 600$ seem like an juicy prize
- which bothers me, because I hold one of those...
But perhaps this will not be possible - there is also 8+ k call contracts at 1000$ - and 4+ k call contracts at 900$.

I guess we can expect ... volatility. Maybe.

All depends how much you paid for them and the current price. Once options become profitable near the expiration then I think it's a good strategy to sell them while you can, at least that's my experience - hence my desire to offload 7th Feb's before next Wednesday.

On the other hand, if you fervently believe the stock's gonna pop after ER and you're happy to take the risk that you'll lose the premium, then let 'em ride.

But be careful if they get exercised and you don't have the funds or margin to buy the shares...

Some of this is advice...

 

[Curt Renz]

Zacks - today:

Why Tesla (TSLA) Might Surprise This Earnings Season

5 Auto Stocks Poised to Beat Estimates This Earnings Season

The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Tesla, Facebook and Amazon.com

Ben & Mitch Zacks were regular guest of mine on my old TV show.